UTC Mocs logoAfter all, the Volunteers looked pretty good during Saturday's Big 12/SEC Challenge game at TCU in the first half, when they were knocking down 8 of 16 3-pointers. However, when they missed all 15 of their second-half attempts at treys, that 41-27 halftime lead became a 75-63 loss that dropped them to 10-11 heading into Tuesday night's return to Southeastern Conference play with a visit from Kentucky.
But while the Vols, Vanderbilt and Memphis were all losing road games this past weekend, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball team traveled to Samford and won 63-56, despite hitting just 3 of 18 3-pointers and but 36 percent of their shots overall.
UTC's fifth straight win not only made it 18-3 overall, but also moved it to a league-best 7-1 in the Southern Conference heading into tonight's visit from The Citadel.
Perhaps that's why the most recent NCAA RPI rankings have the Mocs as the state's highest-ranked team at No. 49, ahead of Vanderbilt (57), Middle Tennessee (79), Belmont (90), Tennessee (115) and Memphis (118).
That might also be why - assuming UTC can win the SoCon tournament and the automatic NCAA bid that goes with it - the Mocs could find themselves seeded as high as 12th in an NCAA regional, given the fact they already own road wins over three teams in the top 100 of the RPI rankings: Dayton (13), Georgia (77) and Illinois (98).
When you're a true mid-major who owns three nonconference road wins over top-100 teams, there's no way you're getting a No. 15 or 16 seed in the Big Dance. Heck, to show you how impressive those victories really are, not a single team in The Associated Press Top 25 this past week has three nonconference road wins.
Not one team.
Yet the Mocs, who received votes but were not ranked in last week's AP poll, have three such victories.
This isn't to say that UTC would have won at TCU, Texas (which beat Vandy), or SMU (which toppled Memphis) if given the chance. It's also not to suggest that the Vols, Commodores or Tigers would have lost at Samford.
Regardless of how good these Mocs appear to be, the SoCon - though a Division I league - isn't yet the Big 12, SEC or even the American Athletic Conference, which Memphis now calls home.
But it is to say that something special is brewing in McKenzie Arena these days, because a win tonight would give the Mocs their best start since the 1982-83 season. It's also to say that as magnificent a job as first-year coach Matt McCall has done, the guy he replaced, Will Wade, deserves at least a bit of credit for changing the culture around Mocsville before he left for VCU and a $1 million-a-year contract.
It was Wade, if memory serves, who coached the Mocs to a monumental win at Wofford last winter. It was Wade who last year coached the Mocs to their first 20-win season since 2006. It is also Wade who has now directed his Rams to 11 straight wins, including an 8-0 start in the difficult Atlantic 10 Conference after a Friday night win at Davidson.
But it is McCall who has the current Mocs playing as they have not played in decades, with a quiet confidence that their best performances are still to come this season.
Merely consider this quote from forward Tre McLean following the Samford win: "Coach was saying all season, 'Don't let shots affect us.' He always says 'What's going to happen when you play a game and the ball doesn't go in the rim?' We hadn't had a game where we really struggled from the field. In our three losses, we kind of struggled, but we weren't good defensively. Today the difference was we were more locked in defensively and more active."
Against Samford, the difference was that despite their shooting woes, the Mocs won the stat sheet in rebounds (43 to 32), steals (7 to 4), turnovers (9 to 11) and free-throw percentage (72 to 45). When those are the numbers you produce when the ball's not going through the rim, you're a real team rather than merely an entertaining one.
This isn't to say any coach or fan wants to have to win with defense. But most teams who reach the NCAA tournament can win that way if forced to do so. And no team wins three nonconference road games against the top-100 RPI opponents if it can't defend, rebound and knock down free throws on a off-shooting night.
And that's why, on this first day of February, the Mocs are beginning to look like the best major college team in Tennessee by an ever-widening margin.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.